FRANKthoughts

We are moving on the 25th and 26th of September to our great new office just around the corner.

Our new address will be:
28 St Edmonds Rd
Prahran VIC 3181

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All our contact details will remain the same.

We’ve lost our balcony but picked up four!

APN are just about to complete construction on a new digital screen in Melbourne’s CBD. It is the largest of its kind in Australia and will be located on top of the historic Young & Jackson building on the Cnr Swanston & Flinders Street. A site previously occupied by Channel Seven’s LED sign.

Due to restrictions enforced by government bodies, they were required to create something that was aesthetically pleasing to it’s surroundings. This amused me, when you consider the eyesore located opposite known as Federation square. Having said this, I think APN have come up with a design that works really well and will enhance the site rather than detract from it.

There will be up to 8 advertiser’s sharing the space at any one time over a 4 week period, with a long term option available. Advertisers will be clearly visible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The first indication of rate is extremely competitive, considering it’s landmark location. I have no doubt that advertisers looking for a presence within Melbourne’s CBD area will quickly jump on board.

Next week I’ve been invited to run my user centric workshop (2001 views) at the Marketing2.0 and beyond conference in Sydney. It’s the second time I’m running this workshop so I have a few new things to talk about. Should be interesting. If you’re in the area twitt to say hello and maybe we can catch up for a drink. (Thanks to woordenaar for the great photo under creative commons)

Apparently web start ups are sooo hot right now, Hollywood actors are making a career move and taking over (thanks Dave). One of these actors is Ashton Kutcher with his “interactive video site” Blahgirls.com. I couldn’t really see how this site is an “interactive video site” and not a celebrity gossip blog with a social community element for 12 year old girls. Isn’t the entire web “interactive”? and the fact you have 2 videos on a page doesn’t make the entire site a “video site”. Moving on, the content is exactly what every LA girl needs, celebrating shallowness with sex references and pimp language . Learning from Ashton, the coolest thing you can call a tween girl is “whore”. I presume that “slut” and “bitch” will follow soon, maybe with some head job instructions. Ok, I’m trying not to be old and prudish but blahgirls smells like the “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset” Paris Hilton SouthPark episode. Thanks Kutcher for making this episode a reality.

 Being in Melbourne, the Capital of Coffee, we pay homage to the Vietnamese Weasel. Weasel coffee has been eaten and regurgitated by the rare Vietnamese weasel. The weasels’ gastric goings-on radically alter the taste of the coffee and the result is a stronger, smoother, heady flavoured coffee that will appeal to serious connoisseurs of the mighty bean. Once ‘evacuated’ by the bean-loving fur balls, the coffee is collected by eagle-eyed villagers, who then market the stuff directly to the manufacturers. Wiki does its job and provides that shot you’re after… freshly regurgitated beansYou’d think that with this incredible collective endeavour that it deserves much better treatment than this. A bag of weasel coffee to the first person who can correctly identify the logos we’ve used to spell brandwars.

OK, now it’s a match. With a budget of 300 million dollars it looks like Microsoft is ready to fight back, putting 10mill on comic heavy weight Jerry Seinfeld. Here’s the first ad from Crispin Porder + Bogusky who won the account a few months back.

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

That’s right. Nobody is selling nothing yet. It’s only the first round. Microsoft is flexing it’s muscles, making some noise and getting the body language right. Let’s wait for second round and see if Bill & Jerry got some punch.

Gary Vaynerchuk has a long history with webtv. His winelibrary.tv got him into shows like Conan O’brien and Nightline. He was mentioned in USA today but still thinks there is a massive gap between what can be done online and the mainstream take up. Watch his reaction here. If you’re a brand manager please take notice. Brands will have their own channels online. Some will have their own content team.  Some will find other solutions. But every single brand will have to go there sooner or later. Here’s how TubeMogul is thinking about the future linking brands and content creators: TubeMogul marketplace.

Last week we took our table top bbq for another test drive - This time with veggies! It was even yummier than usual cause Shen came out with this very professional presentation (Cheers ShenZ:) Take a look at the photos and leave us a comment if you want to get hold of one.

On Sunday 31.08.08 myself and a million other runners in 25 countries participated in a 10k run organised by NIKE+. NIKE+ started with a product - A small chip in your shoe that talks to your ipod nano, tracking your distance, time, pace and calories burned. The product led itself to a community of runners with NIKE offers support, tools and coaching.

Nike plus is a business/product/marketing solution that proves you can achieve great results with an holistic cross business approach. NIKE is so good at that, building an experience that extends marketing buzz words, leaving you searching for new ones to describe it. All elements work seamlessly together supporting one strong mantra: help the participants kick ass.

This is how I felt and my feelings, memories and experience were brought to me by NIKE. How strong is this bond? Wondering how this whole thing came to life (going back to some behind the scenes boardroom) I find it hard to believe it started from a strategy line like: “we want to sell more shoes”. I believe the single thought that started this project was more in the line of: “how can we make our users happy?”. Nike proves that putting your users in front of the bottom line will pay dividends.

Being part of the human race made me think again about the power of brands.

This time Nike pulled off the world’s biggest race. What will they just do next? Here is one answer:

Finally got a chance to go through my favorite blogs and thought it will be nice to start sharing some links I’m deliciousing. I’ll try to do it every Friday and keep it short and sweet. So, here we go: Design, art & usability all play a part in designer Bas Groenendaal work. This designer has hit TED with his new kid focused camera. make sure to watch his Mars + Nietzsche vending machine! The school of life - A new cultural enterprise offering intelligent instruction on how to lead a fulfilled life and how Mozilla  figuring out our semantic lives with Ubiquity.
Have a great weekend!